The proposed plans for the temple complex is a one storey building covering an area of approximately 559m², and classified as a place of worship.

Alongside the temple’s main hall, the new building will also include an additional lecture room, smaller consultation rooms, a reception area, kitchen and library. Skelly & Couch are providing full M&E design from Concept to Construction, along with planning application documents at Stage 2.

The new temple will feature Ground Source Heat Pump technology to extract low temperature energy from the ground through a series of pipes. This innovative technology will be utilised to produce higher temperature heat and serve underfloor heating throughout the temple.

With the temple complex situated away from nearby noise and pollution, natural ventilation will be used wherever possible, ensuring comfort and enabling the end users to have control over their environment manually. With a shallow building design helping to achieve excellent daylight levels, the plan is to maximise the use of natural daylight therefore reducing the requirement for artificial light and roof lights which will help to prevent ‘sky glow’. The building will reinstate the photovoltaic array that serves the existing building to be demolished, adding to the building’s sustainability.

The features of the refurbishment will include the improvement of the environmental control of the libraries, with Skelly & Couch also working alongside the already existing district heating in the building to provide all services throughout the renovated areas and extension.

For this project Skelly & Couch have introduced an innovative approach to the environmental control of the Warburg Institute’s collections and archives. By using ventilation and passive measures only, this process will not include any cooling, humidification or dehumidification to maintain a stable environment for the centre’s material.

The Warburg Institute has a SKA gold rating and is located in Woburn Square in the heart of the University of London’s Bloomsbury campus. At the forefront of the global platform for leading research, the Warburg Institute houses more continental and rare books which are unavailable anywhere else in the UK.

With these changes and additions to the building, the aim is to make the Warburg Institute a more public facing centre allowing it to continue nurturing people’s future research and pursuit of knowledge.

The project will provide creative studios and associated back-of-house space to allow educational groups to ‘be creators rather than consumers developing their own solutions to a practical challenge’. The studios are nestled into the existing exhibition space and connect with existing infrastructure.

Skelly & Couch is carrying out full M&E duties including:

•Installing new water and drainage services to connect to existing systems

•Extending the existing sprinkler system

•Providing heating/cooling and ventilation to the space using a single heat pump system

Since the studios are within the existing exhibition hall, one of the main challenges has been to ensure they are thermally and acoustically isolated from the surrounding spaces. The use of natural light has been optimised with sawtooth roof lights leading out to the existing ETFE foil roof.

The project is part of a major funding boost of £2.6 million from the Inspiring Science Fund, a partnership between the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Wellcome, one of the largest biomedical charities in the world.

The striking Portsoken Pavilion was created as a focal point, in the form of a café and community space run by social enterprise Kahaila, which transforms the reconfigured Aldgate roundabout in the heart of the City of London.

The 325m² Cor-ten steel structure reflects the asymmetrical angles of the City of London Information Centre (also by Make Architects), folding down to meet the ground at three triangular support points, with glazing in between. The channels created by the layered cladding allow rainwater to run down into discreet drains where the rigid steel skin, which will darken in time, meets the Yorkstone paving.

Skelly & Couch’s environmental designs converted the existing subway below the pavilion into a ground-coupled air duct enabling free cooling and heating, thereby implementing a low-energy means of ventilation in the café.

Other environmental design work carried out by Skelly & Couch includes:

• Co-ordinating water feature plant within the existing landscape

• Managing diversions of existing utilities

• Resolving how to insulate the Cor-ten structure and preventing the space from becoming too hot in summer

• Integrating the interior lighting into the unique building form and ceiling finishes

• Designing the rainwater collection system that was incorporated into the pre-cast pivot point element to help prevent staining of the landscape finishes by the Cor-ten steel

The interior soffits are clad with white laminate timber panels, punched with slots to aid the acoustics. Two large asymmetrical rooflights sit over the central counter drawing light into the building. A Small Project of the Year (up to £5m) finalist in the Building Awards 2018.

A new planning application was submitted in May 2018 by developer HUB and landowner Smedvig for the creation of 519 homes, a new 5,200m² office building, car parking, 3,400m² of shops and leisure and a vibrant new public space.

The £100 million project follows Skelly & Couch’s collaboration with HUB Group at Abbey Place, a scheme by architects shedkm of 245 highly energy-efficient apartments and a public square next to Abbey Wood Crossrail station. The award-winning building environment and services engineers are carrying out full design MEP and environmental modelling to planning, with client-side monitoring thereafter, meeting the highest sustainable and quality levels.

Close Passivhaus fabric standards mean that only small amounts of heating are required, allowing the use of electric heating throughout. A significant part of the electrical energy will be derived from a large PV array on all roofs. The façade will also incorporate solar control in the form of deep reveals and solar control glazing as well as ventilation openings to supply fresh air to a Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR) system to address the issue of overheating during hot summer periods and provide ventilation.

Skelly & Couch is also implementing a building energy management system with full fault diagnostics and energy sub-metering and introducing lower hot water consumption through low-use water fittings.

Work on the six-building development is expected to start in early 2019. The regeneration project has achieved a BREEAM ‘Very Good’ rating for Office and Retail spaces.

Located over five floors (10,000 sqm), the new premises brings all of Mountview’s teaching to one site, and features an extensive array of leading-edge facilities, including a 200-seat theatre, 22 dance and acting studios, music practice rooms, two TV studios and a radio suite. A new public space, café and rooftop bar are being created which will be open to the local community. This exceptional building also contains a scenery and prop workshop, wardrobe workrooms, as well as lettable office spaces for local companies and commercial units for catering operations.

The school building and associated studios are designed around a central ‘street’ or atrium, serving as the heart of the school where students meet, interact and informally rehearse. In response to complex technical challenges, Skelly & Couch is delivering a range of innovative design solutions by:

• Developing an effective natural ventilation strategy for the dance and acting studios integrated with the aesthetics and the client’s operational requirements• Optimising the building environment to minimise cooling and heating loads• Delivering a robust and simple services distribution strategy throughout• Coordinating the services infrastructure with the particularly demanding technical requirements of the theatre and teaching spaces• Maximising the servicing of lettable commercial units in the building.

The new Mountview Academy has a BREEAM rating of ‘Very Good’. The site has been home to Mountview’s 400 students since September 2018.

The 4700 m2 new-build, hilltop building with a 275 m2 roof terrace sits at the celebrated gardens’ highest point within a Green Belt landscape of significant historic and scientific importance. The new global knowledge bank will include a range of tightly environmentally controlled public and private spaces: research laboratories, exhibition and events space, science libraries, education classrooms, staff offices, an herbarium, an entomology archive store and a visitor café.

The noisy A3 road runs nearby the site, and key challenges have been to design a building that uses little energy and meets the client’s aspirations, while providing a peaceful environment for staff and visitors alike. Tight environmental control of the herbarium archive store ensures the longevity of the preserved specimens, a process which is typically energy-intensive. Skelly & Couch has minimised energy usage through the design of thick, heavyweight walls around the herbarium to reduce temperature fluctuations over the day; of ground-coupled air ducts to provide fresh air; and through the use of hygroscopic materials to help passively reduce swings in humidity levels.

Good practice in environmental design is shown throughout the building by the use of rooflights to provide natural light and natural ventilation; exposed thermal mass for passive cooling; and high specification glazing to reduce overheating in summer. Other features:

• Cooling by using water from the site-wide irrigation system, which originates from river water and borehole water• Rooftop Photovoltaic cells which offset 10% of the building’s carbon emissions• Attenuated natural ventilation • Mechanical ventilation with heat reclaim.

The outstanding venue, for which Skelly & Couch undertook full mechanical, electrical, environmental and acoustics design, overlooks the River Thames as part of Berkeley Homes' One Tower Bridge development.

The auditorium of the theatre, which opened in October 2017, was designed by Steve Tompkins and Roger Watts of RIBA Stirling Prize-winning Haworth Tompkins Architects, who were involved with another Skelly & Couch collaboration, the refurbishment of the Grade II*-Listed Chichester Festival Theatre.

The theatre features a state-of-the-art prefabricated modular auditorium that brings flexibility and the latest in-stage technologies to the cutting-edge theatre, which offers theatre-makers a platform to create adventurous new work. It is anticipated to be the flagship of a number of new theatres in London.

The Bridge Theatre is run as a commercial enterprise with no subsidies or philanthropic grants. It is the London Borough of Southwark’s second-largest theatre, after Shakespeare's Globe, where Skelly & Couch is presently working on a refurbishment and new-build project.

2018: Winner of Theatre Building of the Year in The Stage Awards; a RIBA London Award; and the Design Through Innovation RICS Award. A Cultural Project of the Year finalist in the 2018 AJ Architecture Awards.

Skelly & Couch services included detailed thermal/daylight modelling studies and MEPH design to deliver a world-class restaurant facility in the heart of Covent Garden. The designs have taken account of the elegant architectural features and requirements of both landlord and tenant, providing a robust design to ensure a sustainable future for this part of the Market Building.

The Opera Terrace, which is located at the top of the listed building and comprises c. 9,000 sq ft including a balcony, is uniquely positioned with striking rooftop views across the Piazza. A bold and contemporary renovation of the site will see the existing conservatory replaced with a new design, creating an inspiring addition to the Market Building.

Significant co-ordination has taken place between various projects as part of the overall masterplan to facilitate ongoing improvements and future developments. This is with the goal of improving energy efficiency and serviceability of all fixed building services across the Market Building while minimising disturbances to historic features or building fabric.The site-wide masterplan element has involved energy analysis and feasibility studies to reduce the carbon footprint of the iconic landmark, while improving comfort, functionality and lettable value; all within the constraints of the existing building.